County will repave 12 miles of roads

Published May 29, 2013 at 1:37 pm

The 2013 Anoka County road overlay program is under way.

The Anoka County Board May 14, on the recommendation of its Public Works Committee, awarded a contract to low bidder, North Valley Inc., in the amount of $4,995,639.37. The engineer’s estimate was $5,201,491.29.

The planned overlay work covers some 12 miles which will be paid for from the county road and bridge property tax levy.

According to Doug Fischer, county highway engineer, the contractor has started work on the project.

Those that impact local schools will be completed by the time the 2013-2014 school year begins Sept. 3, but other will likely continue into September, Fischer said.

But the county has been able to tap into some available federal dollars to add three more overlay projects to the 2013 program, he said.

The Public Works Committee has authorized advertising for bids for these projects, which will be split into two contracts.

According to Fischer, the federal dollars have come from the regional pot administered by the Metropolitan Council.

The dollars were originally allocated to other projects in the metro area, but were returned either because the project did not cost as much as expected or did not go forward, Fischer said.

“We were able to grab our fair share of those funds,” he said.

The federal dollars received, $1,336,680, will cover 80 percent of the cost of the the projects, Fischer said.

One contract will be for a concrete overlay project on Viking Boulevard N.W. (CSAH 22) from Lake George Boulevard (CSAH 9) to Flamingo Street (CSAH 78) in Oak Grove.

The county already has a concrete reconstruction project in progress on Viking Boulevard for a segment from just east of University Avenue to Highway 65, a distance of 1.23 miles.

The two bituminous overlay projects that have been added to the 2013 program thanks to the federal funds are on 157th Avenue N.W. (CSAH 20) from Seventh Avenue N.W. (CSAH 7) to Round Lake Boulevard (CSAH 9) in Andover and on Rum River Boulevard (CSAH 7) from 179th Lane N.W. (CR 27) to 229th Avenue N.W. in the cities of Andover, Oak Grove and St. Francis.

Under the county’s 2013 overlay program contract awarded May 14, projects have been split up according to the amount of work to be done.

Some involve just overlaying the existing bituminous surface; others require mill and overlay, where two inches are taken off the existing surface and two inches of new surface are put on; and the other is reclaim and overlay, where all of the existing road is ground up and a completely new bituminous road is laid, according to Fischer.

“The overlay is the least expensive and the reclaim is the most expensive,” Fischer said.

Roads included in the 2013 contract are:

• CSAH 7 (Seventh Avenue) from East River Road to Main Street in Anoka, mill and overlay.